


Hand More Instrumental

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Series: Hand More Instrumental [1]
Category: Babylon 5, House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Character of Color, Community: crossovers100, Crossover, Gen, In the future everyone is bisexual, Space medicine makes no sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-04
Updated: 2007-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Medical emergencies happen on Babylon 5 all the time, but the collapse of the newly-arrived Vorlon Ambassador is a new level of disaster. Can House and his team diagnose what's wrong with an alien whose race they have no information on before the Vorlons declare war on Babylon 5 and the rest of humanity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand More Instrumental

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Babylon 5 Pilot and episode 2x22, The Fall of Night.

The only upside to the whole situation, House thought, was that he got to watch his team attempt to manhandle the Vorlon's environment suit from a vastly underpowered stretcher to the bed in the isolation lab. He watched the methane/bromine ratio on the air monitors with half his attention, and Chase and Foreman struggle with the bulky suit with the rest.

"Do you have the atmosphere mix?" Sinclair asked as Chase made a rather valiant save.

House spared him a baleful glare. "Please. This is only my _job_."

"How long is this gonna take?" That from Garibaldi.

"We're nearly stabilized on the atmosphere," House said. "Then we'll be able to get inside that suit and see if we can diagnose the problem. Then we can talk timelines."

Someone cleared her throat from behind them. "I'm afraid that won't be possible."

House swiveled in his chair to glare at Takashima, who had snuck in while they were talking. "What do you mean, not possible? Did I break a law of physics I wasn't aware of? Einstein's third law of diagnostic medicine?"

"I sent a message to the Vorlon homeworld," she said, "asking them for any medical information or help they might send. They finally responded." She looked up at Commander Sinclair. "They insist that Ambassador Kosh's environment suit not be opened."

House glanced at the window into the isolation chamber. His team had finally gotten the Vorlon onto the table, and were now staring at the lieutenant commander with expressions ranging from angry(Foreman) to horrified(Cameron).

"They're just gonna let him die?" Cameron finally squeaked over the intercom.

"I'm afraid so," Takashima said.

"Great," House said. "Makes my job easier. Take lunch, guys."

The rest of the command staff looked at him. He sighed. "Fine, fine, we'll treat him _through_ his environment suit. Anyone know magic?"

"Greg," Sinclair said, and that was when House knew he was really in for it, "we have to do this."

"Okay." He nodded. "What do you suggest?"

"You're bound by a doctor's oath of confidentiality, and that's good enough for me."

"Mmmm, not good enough for the Vorlons, though."

Sinclair's gaze was dangerously sharp when he got all righteous. "I'll take full responsibility. Turn off all your video recorders and get in there."

House glanced at the trio with their faces pressed to the glass. Well, their faces would be pressed to the glass, if not for the oxygen masks they were all wearing. He jerked his thumb at them and said, "They're _already_ in there. And they're better at doctor-patient relations than I am."

Sinclair nodded. "All right."

He turned back to his team. "Well, you heard the commander," he said. "Find out where the latches are and open it up." He went to the video relay controls and switched off all the remote views on the cameras. He wouldn't be able to see anything on the outside monitors, but if it made the Vorlons happy...

After a moment's hesitation, he switched the recording from "All external backups" to "Local record only." If the Vorlons didn't find out, it wouldn't make them unhappy, would it?

Sinclair visibly relaxed when the picture died on the screen. Chase, Cameron, and Foreman were looking over the suit for some kind of "open sesame" button. House tapped his cane against the floor and gritted his teeth. He hated waiting. He hated oxygen masks even more, or he'd be right in there with his team, also looking like a three-year-old missing obvious brightly-colored objects in an Easter Egg hunt. Chase was even practicing the pout.

His leg was throbbing again. He raised his link surreptitiously and hit the command that gave him another shot of metazine. Sweet relief, or it would be when it finally kicked in. Come on, guys.

Takashima cleared her throat next to him. "Dr. House..."

"Yes?" he asked, grateful for the distraction, even if he'd never admit it.

"Would you really have let the ambassador die?"

He snorted. "Actually, I was hoping to get you out of the room and go in myself. That way, you couldn't be blamed for your wild, maverick, yet somehow incredibly attractive Head of Medlab's actions."

"I think we've found a catch," Chase said.

"Good," House said. "Does it do anything?"

Chase gave him an irritated look as he worked the alien mechanism. At least, House thought it was an irritated look. It was kind of hard to tell with the reflections off two layers of glass. Chase pushed the button and stepped back, one hand on the suit in case it fell off.

Something moved on the front of the suit. And suddenly, there was light.

He pushed himself to his feet and stepped closer to the window. The trio had recoiled instinctively, and were now staring at the pure column of whiteness piercing the yellow fog in the room.

"What is it?" House asked. "Why does the Ambassador have landing lights in his suit?"

That got Cameron and Foreman to glare at him, anyway. Chase gave himself a little shake and moved to look inside. "It's not..." he said, then froze.

"Chase?" House called. No response. He picked up his cane and gave the window a good hard rap, making Cameron and Foreman jump. "Chase!"

It took long enough for Chase to react that House's brain started to conjure all sorts of stories he'd heard about the Vorlons, half-baked myths that covered everything from turning to stone if you looked at one to their vengeance involving kidnapping you, mindwiping you, and turning you loose with a new Vorlon personality. He'd started to think the replacement personality would be fine if he'd just _get_ a personality back when Chase finally looked up, and even through the really lousy lighting House could tell he'd gone pale.

"We need a tissue sample," House said firmly. "Something to start looking at."

Chase shook his head. "I..."

Cameron stood on tiptoe to lean over the suit and look inside. She gasped, flinched, then steadied herself and looked again. "I'll get it," she said, when Chase didn't move.

As she readied a probe, Foreman tempted fate and peered inside. And froze. "Holy..."

Chase whispered something fast and Latin under his breath, then honest-to-goodness crossed himself.

"What?" House asked. "Is it the Second Coming? Warn me; I'd like to at least shine my shoes."

Chase looked at him and shook his head again, this time warningly.

"Greg," Sinclair said softly. House looked over at him, slightly surprised that he'd stuck around. "Don't you think you're being a little hard?"

"They're my team," House pointed out. "I get to decide how much abuse they can take."

Sinclair sighed and crossed his arms. Cameron pulled the probe back, thumbed the button on the suit again, and took the tissue sample to the analyzer.

"Right," House said, as the trio headed for the airlock. "It'll take a few hours before we get anything useful from the cell analysis. I'll call."

Takashima nodded and left to do her other important officer duties, satisfied. Sinclair knew him well enough not to mess with that particular tone of voice. Garibaldi, on the other hand, was riddled with a bad case of last-word-itis, and said, "I'll keep in touch" on his way out the door. House rolled his eyes and waited for his minions to get their oxygen masks off.

"Okay," he said, when Chase had collapsed into a chair and Foreman and Cameron had given him a full worried look each. "What was it?"

Chase didn't answer, having been struck mute. If he hadn't also been struck useless, House would have been happier. Foreman cleared his throat, but it was Cameron who said, "He looked like an angel."

House looked at her. She looked back. "You're joking."

"Nope," Foreman said. "Definitely looked like an angel."

"It _is_ an angel," Chase said quietly.

House rolled his eyes. "Theological implications later," he said. "Medical implications now. Angel or not, we don't have any symptoms beyond 'keeled over unconscious.' And we're not going to rely on the relevant passages of the Book of Revelations to make our diagnosis."

Foreman rubbed at his eyes. "We will have," he said, "_nothing_ to go on if this is an underlying condition, you know that."

"Yeah," House sighed. "Which means we'll almost be luckier if it's something he picked up here. That way we might have a shot in hell of treating it."

"Well, it's not something he got in our air," Cameron said. "That environment suit's got one hell of a processing pack on the back."

"Malfunction?" Foreman asked.

She shook her head. "The environment inside's a one-hundred percent match to the one we provided, so unless we got bad data..."

"From the Vorlons," House said. "Even I'm not paranoid enough to think _they_ want to kill him. What else?"

"He was alone for a full minute," Foreman said. "Maybe someone opened the catch."

"Leading us right back to airborne, or a nice quick stab," House said. "Did you see any punctures or scarring?"

That led the trio right back to uncomfortable, silent stares.

"Right," House said. "I'm going to assume that means no."

Cameron swallowed. "Not... that I could see."

"Blood-borne and toxic to the brain could do it," Foreman said. "In most species it takes less than five seconds for at least some blood to get from the extremities to the brain."

"What's a brain toxin for an angel?" Chase asked.

House nodded. "Good to have you back with us, Dr. Chase. What indeed?"

* * *

"So, let me get this straight," Wilson said as they sipped flat, synthetic coffee. "You'd rather it be poison than an underlying condition?"

"It's actually sort of a toss-up," House said. "If it's poison, I might be able to find it and cure it. Then again, if someone poisoned the ambassador, we might have a war. If it's an underlying condition, we probably won't have war... but we'll definitely lose him."

"Poison that causes a coma but not instantaneous death," Wilson mused.

"Well, there are _plenty_ of those," House pointed out.

"Sure," Wilson agreed, "for humans. And most races. But Vorlons..."

"Are big fat enigmas in encounter suits, I've noticed." He grimaced. "This goes beyond xenophobia to xenoparanoia."

Wilson was quiet a moment. "How long does he have?" he finally asked, quietly.

"Xenoparanoia," House repeated. "It looks like we've stabilized him, but we don't know how bad bad is. Could be hours, could be days. And if I start treating him now, I wreck any chance of a diagnosis."

"You need more information."

"Yep." He knocked back the rest of his coffee. "Too bad the Vorlons aren't going to give us any."

"Too bad the ambassador can't talk."

House was distracted by someone crossing the Zocalo, confident stride, checked jacket over her arm, a blaze of red hair. Thoughts started to crystalize in his mind.

"Some of those labs must have come up by now," he said, setting his cup down on the counter. "I'm going to go check on the kids and their chemistry set."

* * *

The trio were studiously bent over the computers when House got back to medlab. "Anything yet?" he asked.

"No," Foreman said.

"I think at least some of this is blood," Chase said. "At least, it might have the same function as blood. Not with oxygen, obviously. But other than that."

"Right," House said. "Chase, I want you to go find Lyta Alexander and ask her to come here."

Three confused looks. Chase scrunched up his face and asked, "Who?"

"She's the new station telepath, just got in this morning."

The mood in the room went from confused to shocked. "You... you can't do that," Cameron said. "It's a violation of privacy--he's an ambassador!"

"Oh?" House said. "I thought he was our _patient._ I guess I was mistaken and we should let him die, instead. Chase, go find the telepath. Put on your uniform, I hear the chicks dig it."

Chase stared at him for a moment more before he stood and went to follow his instructions--even heading back to change. Cameron and Foreman watched him go and then turned their ire back on House. "This is seriously not okay," Foreman said. "We're talking Jankowski levels of diplomatic explosion."

"Oh, come on, I am not going to start a war," House said.

"You might," Cameron said. "If the Vorlons find out--"

"Only if we tell them," he pointed out. "And we're all covered by that oath of confidentiality that the commander's so fond of. Can't discuss details of the treatment."

"And the telepath?" Foreman said.

House paused to let Chase pass on his way out the door. "Go get 'em, tiger," he called. Chase didn't even have the energy to glare. "Telepaths have similar privacy rules," he pointed out when the doors closed again, "and scanned information isn't admissible in court."

"That won't help if the ambassador knows it happened."

"He's in a coma," House said. "How's he going to know?"

Foreman glanced at the deceptively still encounter suit in the isolab. "Some coma patients have reported remembering telepathic scans that happened while they were unconscious," he said. "And we don't know how sensitive Vorlons are."

"Well, we know how sensitive this Vorlon _won't_ be if we _don't_ get him scanned," House pointed out. "Because he'll be dead. So unless you have a better idea..."

"Brain biopsy," Foreman suggested.

House squinted at him. "So instead of going into his head, you want me to authorize... going into his head."

"Brain biopsy isn't illegal, scanning is," Foreman pointed out.

"Brain biopsy, on the other hand, could be fatal," House said. "And we still wouldn't know what we're looking for. Unless you can read angel neurons, now."

"I _am_ a specialist in comparative xenoneurology," Foreman said. "If I can put a probe in his head I might be able to figure out what's going on."

"If you can get through his skull without killing him."

Foreman crossed his arms. "I can put a thin-wire MISO probe in without drilling. I don't even need to take the suit off. It'll take ten minutes max, and we can get data in fifteen. How many hours were you thinking the ambassador had, again?"

House thought about that for a moment. "It won't tell you why he's dying," he said, while he catalogued the types of data one could possibly get from a micro-induction stereograph, and decided it was worth pissing off the Vorlons to gather. "But on the other hand, it might tell us if there _is_ an underlying condition. All right, go do it. Cameron, help him."

Foreman headed for the airlock, grabbing his oxygen mask on the way. Cameron eyed House for a moment before following.

It took Foreman more than ten minutes to get the thin-wire probe into the ambassador's head, but it took Chase more than twenty minutes to bring Lyta back, so it all worked out. Foreman was staring at the screen as the data rolled in, eyes nearly crossing from confusion.

"This doesn't look like brain tissue," he said. "This looks exactly like the sample that Cameron pulled out of his chest."

House glanced at the data, then turned to look at the environment suit, lying in the yellow fog. "Interesting," he said.

"That he doesn't have a brain?"

The doors opened, saving House from having to answer. Chase was escorting Ms. Alexander, looking almost embarrassed to be doing so. The telepath looked from House to the ambassador's encounter suit and said, "I'm Lyta Alexander. You wanted to see me? What's going on?"

"I'm Doctor House," House introduced himself, not bothering to offer a hand. "That's the Vorlon ambassador."

Lyta nodded, slowly. "I'd heard a rumor something was going on, but..."

"We need your help," House cut her off. "I need to know why the ambassador collapsed, and I need to know before he dies. Since it doesn't look like he's coming out of his coma any time soon, that leaves you."

She stared at him for a good three seconds before spluttering, "Absolutely NOT!"

"Why not?" House said. "He'll never know."

"It's illegal!" Lyta snapped. "Do you know how much trouble a telepath can get in for scanning someone without written consent or permission from next-of-kin? I could be thrown out of the Psi Corps!"

House frowned. "Wow," he said. "Thrown out of the Psi Corps. I suppose that means... what, sleepers, or jail time? That's a terrible thing." Lyta started to complain, but he cut her off. "So much more terrible than a quarter of a million people suddenly _dying_ because their space station gets blown in half by a Vorlon fleet."

Lyta stared at him, allowing his words to sink in. "What?" she finally asked, apparently not getting it on the first go-round.

"That's unfair," Cameron said.

House looked at her, then at Lyta again. "Let me put it to you this way," he offered. "Ambassador... whatshisname stepped onto this station and started dying. Until we know otherwise, we're going to assume something went wrong _here_. Now, if I were a paranoid alien government, I'd assume hostile intentions on the part of the people organizing the ambassador's travel plans, and nuke them all just to be sure." He looked at Cameron. "_That_ is unfair. Especially considering that most of those quarter-million people are civilians."

He looked back at Lyta. She was staring at the ambassador's still environment suit, wide-eyed. "On the other hand," he said, "if we can find out _if_ someone did this to him, and _who_, and _how_, we might be able to save his life."

She swallowed and looked at him. "Do you really think the Vorlons would attack this station if he died?"

House pursed his lips and thought how best to put his unbiased reading of the situation. "I'd be surprised if they didn't have a fleet standing by right now waiting to turn the entire station into so much molten slag."

Lyta took one last look out the door, as if fearful that the Psi Corps authorities would appear at that very moment to chide her out of her decision. Then she took a deep breath and nodded. "All right. I'll do it."

"Foreman, give her a hand," House said. Foreman shook his head warningly, but showed Lyta where the oxygen masks were and took her through the airlock.

While they got set up, House doublechecked the dosage controls for the metazine drip in his leg. He jabbed the injection button and sighed as the sharp edge of pain softened into a warm glow.

"I can't see him," Lyta said. "How am I supposed to get line-of-sight?"

"Can you work through it?" House asked.

She spread her hands over the top of the suit, frowned through her mask. "I... there's something blocking me. The suit must be shielded."

House sighed, irritated. "Is there anything you _can_ do?"

Her glare was masked by the breather, but her body language was eloquent. "There... is," she admitted grudgingly. She tugged the glove off her right hand and reached toward the opening in the Ambassador's suit.

House found he was holding his breath. Irritated, he let it out, making Chase and Cameron jump.

Lyta passed her hand through the opening and into the brightness of the Ambassador's suit. Her eyes widened, and her head jerked back.

It seemed like minutes passed as she stared, motionless, into empty space. Then, suddenly, she flinched back, pulling her hand back toward her chest and clutching at her head. Her breath came in staggered coughs as Foreman grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward the airlock, trying to get her into open air.

As soon as the mask was off, Cameron grabbed her by the wrists and got her settled in a chair. "Lyta," she said, trying to sound calm. "Lyta!"

"Uhhhhh..." the telepath said. House whipped out a penlight and checked her pupils. No response, no response, and then a flinch and a hand smacking the light out of his grip. "Ow."

He sighed, unwilling to admit out loud he'd been worried. "Good, you're back with us. What did you see?"

She rubbed her hands together as Chase scampered to retrieve his light. "It was poison," she whispered. "In... in a skin tab. On the back of his right hand."

House nodded in Cameron's direction, since she was already in scrubs, and she ducked toward the airlock. "Great," he said. "Who did it?"

"Commander Sinclair," Lyta said venomously.

That took him aback. Judging by the looks on his team's faces, it had taken them aback, too. He waved at Cameron. "We need that sample." She nodded and finished surveying in.

"Are you sure?" Chase was asking.

Lyta nodded forcefully. "It was him. I remember his face. Kosh recognized him."

"Interesting," House said, mind racing.

Foreman stared at him. "You think she's right? He did it?"

"You said he got hit on the back of his hand," House said, thinking aloud. "That means his hand was outside his encounter suit. And yet, he's so vulnerable to our atmosphere that he has to wear that thing around all the time."

"So maybe he's not vulnerable for short periods of time, for skin exposure," Chase said. "Or maybe they're just sensitive about their appearance."

"Well, considering that the ambassador's appearance sent you into shock for a few minutes, maybe that's a good idea," House said. Chase frowned. "And maybe something else is going on, here. Why would Sinclair poison the Vorlon ambassador? There's no motive. If Babylon 5 goes down he goes down with it."

"Maybe he fancied a career change," Chase said.

"Are you going to tell Security what you've learned?" Lyta said, voice harsh.

House looked at her. She had her arms wrapped around herself, one glove still jammed in her belt, jaw set at a stubborn angle. He tilted his head deliberately. "I'm sworn to confidentiality. And so are you."

Lyta pushed herself to her feet. "That's right. And my testimony isn't admissible in court." She nodded, sharply. "See you around, _doctor_."

The door closed behind her. Cameron came out of the isolab with a probe full of poisoned Vorlon flesh. "When Mr. Garibaldi calls," House said, "tell him we think she's probably full of it."

Cameron looked startled. "Wait, you think she's going to tell him?"

"Oh, yeah," House said.

"But... she's under confidentiality. She can't--"

"Right," House said. "Because everyone does everything legally around here. Oh, wait, I guess poisoning an ambassador is illegal, too."

"What about that 'getting kicked out of the Psi Corps' thing?" Foreman asked.

House shrugged. "Guess she empathizes with our patient more."

"So why aren't _you_ going to tell him?"

"Because it isn't my job," he said, watching Foreman's expression get unhappier. "Because our job is to make him better, not to catch who did it." He paused. "Also, I don't empathize with anyone, least of all patients. Makes my job easier."

Chase took his turn offering objections. "But what about--"

"Enough," House cut him off. "As far as we're concerned, our job is counteracting that poison. Everything else is someone else's business."

* * *

"House, it's oh-two-hundred," Wilson complained when he showed up at House's quarters in response to his call. "Don't you want to sleep?"

"Why would Commander Sinclair want to poison an ambassador?" House asked, motioning at him from his couch with a bottle of beer.

Wilson stared dumbly for a moment, then took the offered alcohol gingerly. "I... really hope that you're drunk enough that that's a completely rhetorical question," he finally said. "Why do you want my opinion?"

"Because it doesn't make any sense," House said. "Sinclair has been trying to get the Vorlons on board since he got assigned here. Why would he want to destroy that?"

"Why do you think it was Sinclair?" Wilson said, sitting down next to him.

"I don't," House said, then went, "Hunh."

"That's a good sound," Wilson said sarcastically before taking another drink.

"Why does _Kosh_ think it was Sinclair? No, wait, back up again. Why does _Lyta_ think Kosh think it was Sinclair?"

Wilson was staring at him, openmouthed. "You... you had the ambassador _scanned?_ Do you know how many regulations and treaties that violates?"

"Forty-seven, at last count," House answered flippantly. "It's possible the ambassador never saw Sinclair at all, just someone he thought was Sinclair, and Lyta's mind overlaid his image."

"I don't believe this," Wilson protested again. "I mean, I've been your friend a long time, you've done some pretty insane things in the past. But this--"

"May save an ambassador's life," House pointed out. "Why do I have to keep mentioning that? It seems obvious to me. In any case, her testimony isn't admissible."

"In Earth Alliance courts, sure," Wilson said. "But on Minbar, and on Centauri Prime, telepathic evidence is allowed. I don't know about the Vorlons."

"Nobody knows anything about the Vorlons," House muttered. "That's how we got into this mess."

* * *

"We've isolated the compound," an utterly exhausted Chase told him the next morning, before he rattled off a ridiculously long isomeric chemical form description. At House's blank stare, he pointed to a figure of it on the monitor. "'S like florazine but with an extra couple rings on."

"Okay," House said. "I hope at least one of you has gotten some sleep. I don't need my entire team useless at once."

"Foreman's checking the library," Chase muttered. "Cameron's sleeping, I was going to take the res cot next. Took some stims at..." he yawned. "One or something..."

House swatted him on the shoulder. "Go _home_," he said when the contact made Chase start weaving. "That's an order."

Foreman looked groggy, but not as completely wiped as Chase. "I've found a few possible antitoxins," he said when House loomed over him. "We have most of them in stock. I'll start testing them out on those samples we took to make sure they don't dissolve Vorlon cells completely."

"Good," House said. "I sent Chase home."

"He's been distracted by this whole angel thing," Foreman said.

"Is it a problem?"

Foreman sighed and shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be a problem for _me_."

"Hunh," House said, and looked in on the ambassador, unmoving in a pale yellow fog.

"Don't," Foreman said after a second.

House turned back to look at him. "Don't what?"

"Don't go in there and look." Foreman was giving him a knowing look. It made House want to stick his tongue out. "It's not worth it."

"Hey, I'm his doctor," House pointed out. "Shouldn't I go seek that all-important doctor-patient connection?"

"He's in a coma," Foreman pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that just means he won't try and talk to me."

"Doc!" Garibaldi called from the door.

House swiveled irritably, ready to give Garibaldi his precise opinion about being called 'Doc.' Then he caught sight of the body the Chief of Security was wheeling in. "You're a bit early for my birthday," he said.

"His name is Del Varner," Garibaldi said. "A tech runner. We were going to interview him in connection with the ambassador's poisoning, but..." he waved at the sheet-covered form.

"Do you have an estimate on the time of death?" House asked, pulling back the sheet.

Garibaldi nodded. "No more than ten hours; I saw him in the Zocalo when I was interviewing Londo last night."

"Check your security feeds," House said. "This man's been dead for at least a day."

He got Garibaldi, the other Security goon, and Foreman to stare at him in shock. Nice.

"I'll have a precise time of death for you in a couple hours," House said in the gaping silence. "Anything else?"

Garibaldi coughed. "Yeah. The Advisory Council has been called for a hearing." He nodded at the ambassador. "About the poisoning, and the commander."

House frowned. "That was fast. Don't they want me to make him better, first?"

"Ambassador G'Kar insisted."

"Hunh." House thought that over for a minute. "Do they want me to testify?"

"Yeah. I'll come by." Garibaldi nodded, and he and the other Security guy turned and left.

House looked down at the body, then up at Foreman, who rolled his eyes and then obligingly wheeled it into position by the monitors for autopsy. House tapped for more metazine and then stepped closer for a better look. "What looks like a corpse, walks like a corpse, and talks like a corpse," he asked, letting his eyes flick over the dead guy.

"Corpses don't walk or talk," Foreman pointed out, rather apoetically.

"This one did," House pointed out. "Or something that looked like him did; I'm not picky."

"So what looks like a corpse?"

House stared at the dead man's face, thoughts starting to click together. "What looks like a corpse... and a _commander_," he murmured, while his mind was going _Tech runner, tech runner, TECH RUNNER--_

"Fix the Vorlon," he snapped at Foreman, then turned and hobbled as fast as he could after Garibaldi, cursing his leg, cursing the War, cursing everything. "Garibaldi!" he snapped, seeing him ahead in the hallway, passing Lyta, who he put out of his mind. "Tech runner," he said when Garibaldi turned. "Tech runner, he's got access to illegal technology. Illegal technology like a changeling net."

Garibaldi's eyes went wide. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" He turned to Lyta. "That's what you saw. Not Sinclair, but somebody who--" he cut himself off and stared at the gun that Lyta was pointing at him. "Oh," he said.

There was a burn like half a warship falling on his arm, and he went down hard on his bad leg, but he had the satisfaction of seeing Garibaldi tackle the fake Lyta to the ground before his vision went grey.

* * *

"As soon as he woke up, he exploded," Garibaldi finished his explanation.

"See," House said from his bed, where he was being confined by his staff over his stringent objections, "I would have thought you would have scanned him for a bomb."

"Minbari technology," Sinclair said solemnly. "Our scanners still can't pick most of it up."

This meeting of the command staff was happening rather unorthodoxly in Medlab. Which House was all right with--it meant he didn't have to move his still-smarting leg and he could keep an eye on how his staff were doing with Operation Cure the Vorlon. Which was going splendidly.

He had been right, of course; the assailant hadn't been Sinclair, it had been someone using a changeling net stolen from Del Varner. Varner had been murdered and his identity used until the assassin could snatch Sinclair's ID; then he'd taken a shot at Kosh and faded back into obscurity. The fact that the assassin had been a Minbari was a surprise, but nothing that House felt he could have figured out from the data he'd had. Except, perhaps, that the only people who would know how to poison a Vorlon would be other Vorlons and species familiar with Vorlons, and the only race who could even remotely claim that would be the Minbari.

Ambassador Delenn had been alternately contrite and mortified. House had spent most of that conversation doped to the ears on morphozine.

At the moment, though, he was off the good stuff and back on his narcotic of choice. Kosh's life signs had been improving--well, they assumed improving, for a Vorlon--and it looked like the reception and official opening of the station was on.

Takashima rounded up the meeting with a report on the status of station integrity after the max-security cell was exploded--nothing they couldn't fix--and the rest of the command staff took their leave. Leaving House sitting on his ass with not enough drugs and a team who were standing around looking useless.

"Go find problems to fix," he said, waving at them.

Chase and Foreman took the hint and scattered. Cameron stayed behind, looking concerned. "Are you all right?" she asked.

He nodded briskly. "Yeah, fine."

"Your arm..."

"I've had worse," he said.

That seemed to settle her. "Well, if you need anything," she said, smiling sweetly, "just let me know."

Need anything. He needed the Vorlon out of Medlab, to go back to dealing with cases he wanted to handle instead of wasting time on the walking Wurlitzer.

When the three of them finally left, going back to their comfortable quarters or whatever, he levered himself out of bed, grabbed his cane, and headed to the isolab.

He hated oxygen masks, hated the rubbery taste of the air and the way the lights that were supposed to let you hands-free see what you were doing always seemed to flash straight into his eyes. He fiddled with the straps and clomped into the bitter atmosphere of the ambassador's isolation chamber, ignoring the itching on his arms and legs. Ambassador Kosh's encounter suit was completely motionless, like a dead lump of plastic.

House reached out and touched the catch for the front panel. With a slight hiss he could feel through his fingertips, the petals swung open, revealing glimmering light, softer now, but still piercing in the fog of the room. He took a breath of stale air, and looked--

"Greg, you're going to have to stop poking your head where it's not wanted."

He looked around, startled. His father was looking down at him with moderate disapproval. He straightened his posture more out of reflex than anything else, surprised to find himself home, back on Earth, in the living room he hadn't set foot in for--God, how many years?

He realized his dad was waiting for an answer. "Sorry," he said. "That's how they taught it to me in med school. Without the poking, you see, you can't find out what's causing the problem."

"And that's all people are to you." His dad smirked, took a step forward. "Problems. Puzzles."

House shook his head and stepped forward himself. "That's not the point. I--" Stop. Look down.

No pain. He'd stepped straight onto his bad leg, without help, and there was no pain. He frowned, flexed his thigh muscles. Everything felt... fine. Normal.

He looked up at his dad, suddenly wary. "What's going on, here?"

His father sighed, looking somewhat contrite for once. "I'm sorry, Greg," he said. "It's all in your head."

House stared at him, letting the implications sink in. Then he reached out for the 'wall' to steady himself. "Nice to finally meet you, Ambassador," he said.

"And you, Dr. House," Kosh said. "I understand I have you and that nice young telepath to thank for my swift recovery."

"You didn't really think it was Sinclair, did you?"

Kosh laughed. "No, no. I knew as soon as he touched me. Too late by then, though."

"Well." He looked around the living room. It looked just like it had the last time he'd seen it. "You do this trick often?"

"When I must." Kosh was smiling sadly, an alarming expression considering the face. "Please try to remember, Dr. House. We're all connected. All living, thinking beings are connected, dependent on one another. Even those who try not to be."

"You've been reading--" too many self-help books, he was going to finish, but he was staring down at the closed front of the encounter suit, atmosphere chilly on his exposed flesh, monitors beeping steadily in the background.

* * *

"That went well," Wilson said at the bar the next week, as House perched on a stool and watched the various ambassadors pretend to like each others' territorial rights for a night.

"Yeeeah," he said slowly, watching Ambassador Delenn make some sort of formal gesture-speech in Ambassador Kosh's direction.

"Of course," Wilson commented, "you're not happy unless something is going terribly wrong. Here, I'll go pour champagne on Ambassador Kalika for you."

"I think that's an Abbai courting ritual," he said.

Wilson frowned into his glass, surprised. "Really? Seems kinda sticky to me."

"Be careful if you try it. You'll need to be able to hold your breath." He shook his head. "Why would a Minbari try and poison a Vorlon?"

"Oh, God," Wilson groaned, "we're back on that again. They caught the guy."

"What remained of him after he exploded. Doesn't that seem weird to you?"

"Weird, yes. Our problem, no. They won't try that again, whoever 'they' are."

House knocked back half his champagne, one eye on the walking curtains. "The Vorlons are powerful. They're friends with the Minbari, who are _also_ powerful... and they might be enemies with someone we haven't even met yet, who could be anything from powerful to really incredibly scarily powerful."

"House..."

"No, think about it. Why would the most powerful beings in the galaxy join this trumped-up League of Nations? Something's up."

Wilson rolled his eyes, and patted him on his shoulder. His good shoulder. "I'm going to go talk with Laurel. Let me know when you're drunk enough that you'll have trouble staggering home."

House snorted and watched his back as he retreated. When Wilson had inserted himself into the charming circle of Takashima, Garibaldi, and Ambassador Kullenbrak, House let his gaze drift over the crowd.

To find Ambassador Kosh, staring at him. Slowly, the eye of the Ambassador's encounter suit irised open, then closed again as the Ambassador turned away. House looked down at his champagne.

"To Babylon Five," he said. The bubbles tasted flat as he drank.


End file.
